Sharing Photos in a Post

In this post, I am going to share just one photo. I'm going to use my file explorer or image editor to find the photo on my computer, then drag the photo and drop it in this message window.

I was given the choice to show the image in the message as a Thumbnail, or a Full Image. I chose full because it's only a single photo. You can view it full-size by clicking on it. Click it again to close it.

The problem I see with that method above is that it doesn't open gracefully and it's much more difficult to view. Depending on your browser size, you will have to scroll left and right, even up and down to view the whole photo.

That doesn't happen if you upload photos and choose Thumbnail. Here are 4 photos I dragged and dropped into the message editor. Click any one of them and you can view them all in a dark photo viewer. In the upper-right corner, you can view the picture full-size, or click the X and close the viewer.

Okay, so there's 6 instead of 4. I uploaded four the first time, then added 2 more. After the first upload, I clicked the first icon that said "Insert every image as a..." and chose Thumbnail. When I dragged and dropped the other 2 photos, I selected Thumbnail next to their mini-thumbnails at the end of the list of photos I uploaded. I can also choose to delete any or all of the photos, if I have made a mistake.

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That last picture shows you what I see after uploading. All I have to do is look at the thumbnails to see what photos I've uploaded to this post. If I have a duplicate, I can delete one of them just like deleting a letter or a word in the editor. If I don't want the photo at all, then I can click delete next to it's tiny thumbnail. And I can type, then post photos, then type some more, post more photos - as often as I want. I get to choose where the photos go and how they look on the page.

But in the most simplistic manner, I can drag & drop photos in my post and do nothing more. Like in the next post.

If I don't want to do anything except type a few sentences, if that, and post some pictures, it couldn't be easier than just dragging some pictures into the message editor and drop them. Then click Post Reply or Submit New Topic and I'm done. No worries about what to choose, Thumbnails or Full Image. I don't have to choose either.

As I explained above, you can "drag & drop" one or more photos into the message editor, but you can also select your photos from your file manager or image manager program on your PC or Apple computer. Just click the big red button labeled "Upload Photos or PDF" (yes, you can share PDFs this way too) and your default file/photo manager will open.

Find your photos, select one or more of them, click the photos you want to share, then click Open.

At the bottom of the message editor, you'll see a list of the photos you have uploaded. You can insert photos the way I have in this post by placing your cursor where you want the photo(s) to appear (I hope you do this on a separate line), then click the red button labeled either Thumbnail or Full Image you see next to the photo you want to insert. Your image will appear where your cursor is.

Clicking Thumbnail instead of Full Image does not mean viewers won't be able to see your photos in all their full-size glory. It only means your pictures won't take up all the room on the screen. If you choose Thumbnail, then the reader can click any of the images to open it in a viewer that presents a full-screen image. In that viewer, you can also choose to open the image full-size in a separate window, if you want a closeup view of something.

When I post photos, I usually select Thumbnail when I have multiple images to share and Full Image when I have only one image to share. However, Full Image doesn't actually mean your large photo will appear full-size on the screen. If it is bigger than the boundaries of the forum box, the photo will be confined to the size of the forum message pane, but you can click the photo to see it full-size.

I haven't used my smartphone to upload photos - I very rarely use my phone for the Interweb - but I will try to show how to do that... but not today.